[00:00:04] Broadcasting live from atop the Rocky Mountains, the crossroads of the West, you are listening to the Liberty Roundtable Radio Talk Show. A Pulitzer Prize finalist as our guest. There must be something in the water. Corrupt cops. And do you dare say, I got a tick.
[00:00:31] Happy to have you along, my fellow Americans. I'm Sam Bushman. Hard-hitting news that I refuse to use. It all starts now. Kurt Crosby is with me, well known as the Honeyman. Localhoneyman.com. Welcome back to the show, sir. Buenos dias. Greetings and salutations. Howdy, howdy, howdy. Thank you, Sam. You're very welcome. Darlene McCormick Sanchez, senior reporter for the Epoch Times.
[00:00:57] She was truly a Pulitzer Prize finalist as well. She's an incredible senior investigative reporter. She covers border security, immigration, election integrity, Texas politics, and now she's been adding features to a lot of her reporting over at Epoch Times. Darlene, welcome back. Hi, thanks for having me. All right, the cops have gone crazy headline.
[00:01:23] Darlene, Texas Police Department shuts down after arresting a woman who questioned water quality. How dare you, Darlene? Question water? No. Jennifer Combs is her name. She questioned the water. She wrote about it on Facebook. That's how it all started, right? Yes, absolutely. It's an incredible story as you were kind of prefacing there.
[00:01:50] Tell me the details of this, then. She just instantly felt like, hey, the water's gone downhill. Got to say something about it. So she speaks out, right? I mean, that's how it really started? Yes. Well, she lives in the community, of course. And she has, she had a website. She still has it. But it's not as active as it was because of, you know, basically the complications from the entire situation that happened with her being arrested. But it was called Southern Bell Watch.
[00:02:20] She was a community journalist, you know, watchdog, basically. People were online complaining about the water. But this has been going on for a long time in this little town. But one elderly lady was saying that she'd run out of money. She could no longer afford to buy any more of the bottled water and was asking for help. And that's how the whole thing got started. The water was particularly egregious at that point, according to the residents.
[00:02:46] Jennifer Combs asked for information on her website, anyone to report to her what was going on with their water. And she would report it, like, to the Water Commission, basically here in Texas and the EPA, that sort of thing. And then before you know it, the police were knocking on her door and she was cuffed. Wow. Some people say somebody's knocking at my door. Somebody's ringing the bell. Do me a favor. I would say turn them away. Don't let them in. Anyway, strange stuff.
[00:03:16] She basically then was just reporting. What did they say when they came to her door? Well, the people that came to her door, she lives in the adjoining county, actually. These counties are very – where she lived is, like, on the county line, basically. And so the police department in Trinidad got the other police department in her county to, you know, basically serve the warrant. And, you know, she said, what's going on?
[00:03:44] She said, you know, she knows everybody in that town. They know her. And she thought they needed some help or something. So, you know, she opened the door and said, hey, you know, what can I do for you? And they said, well, you know, we have a warrant for you, a felony. And she's like, what? What for? And they said, well, it's something about you causing some sort of, you know, concerns over the water, you know, that you were causing some sort of public outcry. And therefore, you know, you were charged.
[00:04:12] So she was jailed for 23 hours, ladies and gentlemen, on this felony charge. And I guess they didn't really explain themselves much or there isn't much details. I mean, she can say whatever she wants about the water, right? I mean, this is America, isn't it? Yeah, that's what she thought, too. Absolutely. And, you know, she was dumbfounded by it. It was just, you know, she described the experience to me. It was horrible.
[00:04:40] She said, you know, she has grown children, but, you know, they have tracking devices on their phones like a lot of people do, you know, for family members and friends. And, you know, they were calling her. They couldn't get through to her. And they tracked her. And they saw that she was at the jail. And so they started calling her husband and saying, you know, hey, what's going on? Where's mom? We're showing that she's in jail or something. And he's like, yeah, she is.
[00:05:08] You know, they picked her up on this and they're like, what? Mom's a goody two-shoes. How did this even happen? And he's like, I don't know. So the whole thing, you know, was it garnered national attention, of course, because it was incredibly disturbing for a lot of people to find that, you know, someone who spoke out on a community page, basically, you know, it's public.
[00:05:32] Asking about water conditions, getting information could be arrested in Texas and the United States. No violence, no hostility, no threats, nothing like that, right? Absolutely nothing. It's, you know, I used excerpts from what she posted on her page and put it in the article. You know, it was basically asking for information and, you know, citing what other people had told her.
[00:05:58] There was one, I believe one person said that she'd went to the hospital over the water. I wasn't able to determine if that was so or not. But, I mean, you know, this is what people were telling her. And, you know, those people have a right to their opinions as well. And, you know, it just kind of escalated after that. The police chief came out on the, you know, official Trinidad Police Department Facebook page and doubled down on it, saying, you know, he had every right to.
[00:06:27] It was a cut and dried case, is what he said. And, you know, they had every right to arrest her. Yeah, absolutely. Kurt? Well, you know, Sam, you know, like they say, they had every right to arrest her. Of course, it all depends on the sheriff, you know, Sam, and with our work with. Here's the interesting thing, Kurt, not to interrupt, but because the police department did all this, they eventually got shut down. Yeah.
[00:06:54] And they had to turn this over to the Henderson County Sheriff's Department to take over the policing. It was so bad, Kurt. I read that on the story, and I agree. You know, so many times all it takes is a good sheriff. And, you know, I mean, good government is amazing. Bad government? Whoa. Look out. Good point. I will say this as well, Darlene, about this story.
[00:07:22] What I don't understand is, did they, one county got a hold of another county, and then the police department arrested her, but did a judge sign the warrant too? I mean, this goes beyond the police department, right? Yes. Yes. A judge did sign the warrant, and the judge later came out and said that he wasn't given all the information on this case, and that's why he signed it.
[00:07:49] And, in fact, he made it to where the Trinidad Police Department was no longer able to request warrants, you know, remotely, that they had to actually appear before him from that point onward to get a warrant signed by him. That's how egregious it was. They basically brought up these charges and allegations against her.
[00:08:13] Most people are familiar with the rule where you can't, you know, cry fire in a crowded theater because, exactly, it can cause a panic. You know, people can get hurt, that sort of thing. That's what this charge was brought under, that type of statute. So that was hardly the case, you know, in this situation. And yet, you know, they doubled down on it and said this was perfectly legit, you know, and they went forward with it.
[00:08:41] She ended up being, you know, no billed before a grand jury. So, you know, the charges were dropped against her. A grand jury declined to indict her. The charge was dropped. Then she sued the city and police officials alleging false arrest and retaliation for exercising her free speech. Now, it seems to me that it's good that the judge did that. But it also seems to me, though, that, you know, when he says he didn't have all the information,
[00:09:11] if you feel like you don't have all the information, then why wouldn't you, why would you indict or, you know, why would you sign the warrant? Why wouldn't you just say, hold on, I need more information? I'm not sure I understand the judge trying to get out of harm's way. Is it just CYA? Well, I think what the point he was trying to make is the information they gave him didn't measure up. It was incomplete based on the reality of what happened. So, basically, it sounded like, you know, he didn't come out and say that.
[00:09:37] It sounded like he was given, you know, it's like, you know, omission, right? So, if you omit certain facts, you know, then your story sounds better, right? So, that's basically what he was trying to say, in my opinion. Understood. Do we know who'd done it then? Is this really local cops just being crazy? Is this somebody from the water district said, hey, man, they can't criticize the water, do something about this?
[00:10:03] Does this go beyond the counties and maybe to the state and or to the feds? And the reason I ask that question is because, you know, mom went down to school board and thought she was talking to her local, you know, people there. It turns out that, no, the FBI was kind of routing them, you know, with that thing. And we found out it wasn't just your local school board at all. Do you know where the buck stops with this thing? You know, the best I can tell, it is indeed a local issue.
[00:10:30] And the reason I say that is the Texas Rangers confirmed to me that they are investigating this incident, you know, in the town, the way things were operated. So I can't imagine, you know, it's possible, I guess, you know, there could be something there that's, you know, that's yet to be uncovered. But it seems pretty straightforward. I haven't seen any federal involvement mentioned whatsoever. I've been in contact with her attorney, you know, several times and spoken with him.
[00:10:59] To the best of my knowledge, no, this isn't a federal thing. This is a local thing. You know, like these little towns, you know, these people have lived there all their lives. It's just everybody knows everybody. And if you're the mayor or the council member and you've been in that position a long time, you know, you wield a lot of power in these little towns. And unfortunately, you know, I think that sometimes that goes to people's heads.
[00:11:26] And I think they're just saying, hey, how dare you bring this up or whatever locally you should know better. We know people and not really realizing that, hey, in my opinion, citizens as watchdogs could, if there was a problem with the water beyond maybe it smells bad or doesn't taste good or whatever, some serious problems, then it would be a blessing that people brought this up and it could be researched and fixed. We know there are water problems in other states where they've actually had to do that. So, you know, I don't think bringing it up is the problem. I think the response is the issue.
[00:11:55] But this local police department, I guess, had 20 plus other issues. And that's why it was shut down, too. And that's another reason we believe it was local is because there was a lot of other problems locally there, 20 plus issues. That's why they didn't just get a slap on the hand. They literally shut down the police department and turned it over to the sheriff, right? Right. You know, again, what Jennifer's attorney told me was that some of these issues had gone back for years.
[00:12:25] For example, in the same story, what made it just even more incredible was that there was a local guy that liked to get out and protest there in Trinidad. He was, you know, he's another watchdog type. He went down to the city hall to complain about the police arresting Jennifer Combs, and he himself was arrested. Wow.
[00:12:54] You better tell him not to get too close there, Darlene. Yeah, I went to visit myself. I, you know, luckily I didn't get thrown in jail. But, you know, after that, then people in the city, in city that worked for the city that, you know, the allegation was they refused to file a complaint against this guy who was out there. He used a profanity in one of his signs he was holding up, you know.
[00:13:21] But, you know, they said, well, we didn't care. We weren't offended. But supposedly they were pressured into or attempted to be pressured into signing a complaint saying they were offended. And they refused. So they got fired. Wow. So basically the report should be going in, should be in our car. You know how you do those kind of pre intros to what you're going to go do. Sometimes they do that for kind of effect and stuff like that for reality TV.
[00:13:49] It'd be like Darlene McCormick Sanchez has a turning on speed dial, decides to roll into, you know, this county and report on the safety of Trinidad water. This is getting very serious, ladies and gentlemen. It's on one hand laughable, Darlene. Yeah, it is. And on the other hand, though, it's really sad, isn't it? You think about it. I mean, this woman's just trying to do a good deed, really. You know, she's trying to help some people out. She thinks there's a problem there.
[00:14:18] She'd heard about these problems forever. You know, lived in the area. She didn't live there in Trinidad, but she was in the neighboring county and she'd go over there. She knew a lot of people there, you know, and she just was trying to help out. And she thought, you know, something needed to be done. You know, her comment to me when I said, you know, what do you want to happen out of all this? And she looked at me and she said, I want them to fix the damn water. Wow. Imagine that, Kurt. Well, you're supposed to just pay for the water.
[00:14:48] You don't complain about the water. But, you know, one of the things that this story highlights for me is the beauty of America. Now, I'm not saying America is perfect, but this lady literally has the opportunity here in America still to move. And so does every one of those residents.
[00:15:14] Or she can run for the city offices and she can make that change. Now, I know she's got an uphill battle with sounds like the local officials. But it's, I mean, I was reading a story from the Epoch Times earlier where they're talking about forced organ harvesting in China. And so at least that's not going on in her. Yeah. We just have bad water and you didn't lose your kidneys, you know? Yeah, that's right.
[00:15:45] You know what I mean? And you're right, Kurt, about this, though, too. One good thing is, I mean, it's sad that she got arrested and she had to suffer 23 hours in jail. That's wrong and evil. But thank heavens to the Epoch Times reporting on this. And it turns out that basically now what happened was, hey, they shut down the police department over this. They got to the bottom of 20 plus other corruption cases as a result of this. And so it is, as Kurt says, kind of a shout out to mercy and justice that the system does work, Darlene.
[00:16:16] Yes, absolutely. And the fact that she can sue and try to become whole again through a lawsuit. Think about foreign countries where you have none of those opportunities whatsoever. And a couple of these suits, my understanding is they've already been settled. Hers is in the stage where I guess they'll figure out whether it moves forward or not. The city wants it dropped, of course.
[00:16:44] It will likely go forward unless it's settled as well. But, you know, she's, you know, I talked to Jennifer again recently and, you know, she's still a firebrand, still out there fighting. She says, you know, she, the good thing about all of this for her is that she wants citizens in little towns everywhere in America to understand they have the right of free speech just like anybody else.
[00:17:09] And for them not to be afraid and, you know, hopefully that they will, you know, gain courage from her example and speak out themselves if something's going wrong in their town. Amen. Amen. Go, go. Jennifer Combs, ladies and gentlemen. Great hero from Texas. And thanks for Darlene McCormick Sanchez, the Epoch Times senior reporter reporting on it. Keep an eye on your town, would you please? In the meantime, though, you're doing some special features.
[00:17:35] And you brought up one of them before the show that I really want to dig into in the last couple of minutes that we have, Darlene. That's these ticks. You know, somebody gets a tick and then somehow they get this disease and they can't eat meat. And it's just weird. Break that down for us. Yeah. You know, the story overall, a lot of the story did focus on this, you know, red meat allergy that's developed from a tick bite. And it's called Alpha Gal syndrome.
[00:18:06] I went up into Kentucky. And even when a guy did it, it's still called Alpha Gal, just so everybody knows. Yes, it is. So I went up into Kentucky and I found a lady and started talking with her. She, you know, discovered it that, well, they actually confirmed the diagnosis. It was something, you know, nobody really knew about until I'd say about a decade ago. So she was confirmed about 2014. But she'd been sick before them.
[00:18:33] And she said she remembers getting sicker and sicker. And then to the point where, you know, her hands would, when she'd eat and she couldn't figure it out because it would be several hours later. Right. It wasn't like immediate. Like if you have a shellfish allergy or peanut allergy that people have, you know, it's immediate. Right. This is something different. And it was slow, like a slow burn. And she finally, you know, just she she went to the doctor. She's like, this has to have something to do with ticks.
[00:18:59] Because one day she went home after being out, you know, riding four wheelers, you know, up there in the mountains and hills of Kentucky and coming there and visiting with her aunt sitting on the porch, you know. And all of a sudden she gets home and she sees these tiny little dots all over her. I mean, like pinpoints, right? You know, like a tiny. You wouldn't even see them hardly moving. And turns out they were ticks all over her. So this particular, you know, tick, there's the ones that call this are called the Lone Star tick.
[00:19:28] And it's not because they're from Texas. It's just because the females have a star on their back. That's how they're identified. So they're from, you know, they basically populate the southern regions mainly. But they're moving north. And they're carrying this allergy for a lot of people. Not everybody gets it. But anyway, in this little town, you know, I talked to three people that had it. And I talked to other people in the town just stopping by and talking to folks.
[00:19:54] And they all knew somebody with it or heard somebody who had it. So it's widespread up there. You know, far more prevalent than I would ever have thought in this small town. Kurt, this is wild. You bet, Sam. I mean, if you didn't have enough to worry about with the Federal Reserve, the IRS, et cetera, now you've got to worry about the tick situation, huh? You're right about that.
[00:20:23] The headline that Darlene has for this, ticking time bomb. Yeah. How ticks are fast becoming a major public health threat, ladies and gentlemen. You can read that at the Epoch Times. What is going to be done about this? It seems to me strange, though. Right when Bill Gates and other people are starting to do these weird, you know, genetically modified, man-made kind of weird mosquito things,
[00:20:50] and they release all those, then all of a sudden we find out about this weird tick thing. Now, I don't know that that's related. It's unfair to say that it is. But I find it strange. Did you find anything related to this that's weird or anything we're doing as humans? Or did this just come out of the blue? Any details on that, Darlene? Well, when I talked to, you know, entomologists and public health officials for this article, you know, the entomologist actually, you know, had some pretty good insight.
[00:21:18] You know, what she was talking about is, you know, it was mosquito-borne illnesses, tick-borne illnesses, fleas even, right? You know, they've carried diseases for, you know, centuries, right? Forever, sure. Yeah. And what happens is, you know, a lot of times these viruses or, you know, the bacteria, they only impact, you know, the carrier. And then something changes.
[00:21:41] You know, they may bite a particular mammal that has something else, and it kind of changes the way this virus or bacteria behaves and alters it to the point where then it could be passed on to the humans. So it's a chain, kind of a chain reaction thing. You know, they're not sure because these things do happen and they come up all the time. You know, this was something new. And I asked her, I was like, well, is it more, you know, because it's really been exploding these cases across the United States with esophageal.
[00:22:10] And I said, is it the situation to where we know more now where we can identify it, or is it a situation where there is more of it? And she said she thought it was a little of both because, you know, the ticks have rebounded, okay, which is, you know, people, you know, beginning of the century, of course, I should say in the 1900s.
[00:22:34] You know, there was a lot of forests being cleared, you know, industrialization was on the move across the United States. And then, you know, some of these industrialized areas, you know, basically fell off the maps, you know, it kind of went into disrepair. These little towns died. You know, a lot more wildlife returned. You know, there was a lot more deer. And with the deer came, you know, the black-legged ticks, which caused Lyme disease. And a lot of other ticks were able to thrive in these type of atmospheres.
[00:23:03] So is there a response eventually? I know we have mosquito abatement programs all over the country. Are they going to have tick abatement programs as well, do you think? Is that a real thing, or am I just talking out of turn? Well, you know, there was definitely the call for that. I think, you know, one of the public health officials I talked to said she thinks that the U.S. should take it as seriously as they do, mosquitoes. You know, yeah, there's an abatement program for mosquitoes in towns that go around and spray all the time.
[00:23:28] So why not with ticks in some of these towns that are, you know, especially where, you know, there's a lot of woodlands around. They're not very populated. A lot of outdoor activities that people love. But, you know, the irony is some of these people, you know, you don't get it. I talked to this one guy up there. You know, I met him on a bridge, you know, and he was out, you know, and just taking a walk that morning. And then I asked him about it, and he said, hey, you know, I've been bitten, like, tons of times. Nothing happened to me.
[00:23:58] Well, and I pray that's true for everybody. Brad Paisley's country song, Check You for Ticks, might not be so romantic anymore, ladies and gentlemen. Just saying. Anyway, all right. Darlene McCormick Sanchez, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate all you do. Thank you. Incredible Epoch Times reporter, ladies and gentlemen, looked for her columns. You got to follow her. Darlene McCormick Sanchez, theepochtimes.com. I'm Sam Bushman, Kirk Cosby with me.
[00:24:28] Hard-hitting talk, localhoneyman.com. Check out his website. And we're everywhere, baby. X, YouTube, Rumble, Truth Social, spread the word, share the love, and God save our constitutional republic.